Customer Reviews

The Stranger

5 star:		(166)
4 star:		(66)
3 star:		(37)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

The Stranger, or L'Etranger, has indeed been a staple of high school literature classes in the West for a very long time, and for good reason. Its main character, Meursault, is a young man with quite a blasé attitude toward the trivial things in life and is generally disinterested with the contrived conformities that society imposes on people. Even-keeled and even affable, Meursault enjoys interaction with people a great deal; in fact, he thrives on it. But since he sees all things as mere absurdities, he bores with the things of this life very easily. This is a guy who's truly detached from his emotions; as such, he has difficulty feeling, expressing, or even identifying the existence of emotion within himself. Seen through his eyes, there is no grand purpose in life. There is just existence and the experiencing of that existence. He has passion for nothing and lacks convictions of any kind. Regardless of what occurs in his life, "It's all the same to me" he says. In today's Western culture, Meursault would almost certainly be categorized as having been afflicted with Dysthymia, a condition whose effects are known all too well by many young people.

The Stranger begins as Meursault hears word of his mother's death. He makes plans to go to the home for senior citizens where she had lived for a few years to fulfill the duty of attending her burial. Meursault is noticeably lacking any feeling one way or another about his mother's death, and he is generally disinterested with the whole affair, more or less pressing through it begrudgingly. Unbeknownst to him, this lack of sympathy will actually come back to haunt him and ends up contributing to his demise. When Meursault returns home from the funeral procession, he continues to live moment-to-moment as he always has. The choices he makes from here on out have a spontaneous vigor, but they only serve to worsen his fortunes even more. There are unplanned consequences for Meursault's actions in the near future.

As the story moves on, Camus further demonstrates that Meursault isn't really a misfit, as some readers have come to mistakenly believe. Nor is he the product of an indifferent society; rather, he is an original thinker, a free spirit, and an individual who deliberately marches to the beat of his own drum. He doesn't consciously make a choice to be an outcast from society, nor is he rejected by society. He is merely a regular guy who accepts whatever the moment brings, goes about his life unconcerned with trivialities, and doesn't allow the uncontrollable circumstances of life to move him one way or another. He's at ease with that which is, and will continue to be, unknown. Meursault has faith in nothing except that which he experiences and senses. To him, the beauty of life is its absurdity; the illogical events of life and the lack of explanations behind them are embraced without fear or wonder.

From the opening gates, The Stranger champions existential themes, and Camus is very effective in delivering this philosophy with poignant virtuosity. Among the advocates of Existentialism, Camus (along with Sartre) was one of the most important existential authors and thinkers of the 20th century. Well-known for his spirited, concise, and austere style, Camus was soon recognized among erudite circles around the world as a major literary figure. His belief that life's/mankind's condition is absurd clearly identified him with the Existentialists. He was a proponent of the idea that life, in-and-of itself, is meaningless; thus, life's meaning is solely dependant on whatever meaning we attach to it. Camus' writings are chock full of classic representations of Existentialism, which are embodied in the fictional personas or characters he writes about. The Stranger is no exception, as it plainly represents classic Existential themes.

In fact, Meursault himself IS Existentialism manifested to its core. Camus takes great effort to focus on Meursault's uniqueness, indifference, and isolation in a hostile environment. Meursault is unconcerned with notions of morality. For him, the issue of right and wrong is quite relative to each individual's perspective on the matter; but more to the point, Meursault doesn't see things in the context of being moral nor immoral. In fact, he has no use for morality really; consequently he is decidedly amoral. There are no particular categorization, limitations, or boxing-in of possibilities. Indeed, for him, one man's horror is simply another man's delight and vice versa, nothing more, nothing less. Furthermore, because of the fact that Meursault sees the world in these terms, he is absolved from feelings of guilt or remorse. He's able to exist in almost any situation with the same nonchalant, careless manner and laissez-faire point of view on life. His modus operandi represents freedom of choice, regardless of societal principles or views of those choices, with an acceptance of accountability for their consequences.

Though I enjoyed Camus' writing and lucid style, I did find much of the story to be pointless; which is precisely the point actually. Yet, I personally don't find much pleasure in delving into the type of premise that Camus chooses to explore with his philosophy on life; but that doesn't diminish the book itself. It's certainly an important read and much can be learned from it; in particular its themes are deeper understood once you've begun reflecting on it. If you're new to the Existential perspective, The Stranger is a good place to start getting acquainted with it. Even if you don't agree with the philosophy of Existentialism, you'll learn to understand it better and see things from a different perspective. As I see it, having a broad understanding of many things is key to developing an astute intellect and sound discernment.

Take the time to enjoy this book for what it is. Just don't expect a fairy-tale ending. Once you've finished The Stranger, it almost certainly will provoke you to reflect further, but it will not lift your spirits and is as anti-climactic as life itself.

I have read many of the 284 reviews written before mine, and feel it is important that readers understand what it is that they are reading.

First, and foremost, Camus is an existentialist. As the Encyclopædia Britannica states "...Existentialism does not leave man with nothing to do. Once the nullity of the existential possibilities is recognized, man cannot but resign himself to Being, which, in one of its new manifestations in the world or beyond it, conducts him to a new epoch." Thus in its most basic form existentialism is an investigation into Being--how one lives--how one should live.

Second, "The Stranger" is not written as Camus sees life, but rather as a critique against his contemporaries, e.g Jean-Paul Sartre, many of whom see life as absurd or pointless. Do not mistake Meursault's unemotional amoral living as the "Being" of Camus. Why would Camus argue for such an absurdity when he argues against suicide in "The Myth of Sisyphus"? (Sisyphus living perhaps the most absurd of all existences.)

Third, and final, Matthew Ward's translation is superb. Do not be misled by other reviewers that have perhaps not compared translations side by side--Mr. Ward's translation is true to the style of the original--a TRANSLATION rather than a TRANSLITERATION.

In conclusion, if one approaches this translation of "The Stranger" with an understanding of existentialism, Camus, and the translation, I believe a full appreciation for this philosophical masterpiece will be gained.

Very happy with the delivery. Exactly what I ordered. The book matches with the picture, is in good shape and was delivered on time. :)

This book opend my eyes to other peoples ways of showing emotions and their troubles in life. The main character is a Arab named Monisuer Mersault. He does not show his emtions with his face or actions he keeps them inside. At the begging his maman dies. Later as the book evolves he finds a girlfriend and on a weekend trip with her he murders another Arab. He had been getting in with the wrong group of people. When he murderd the person he was feeling threatend by a group of Arabs with knifes. Mersault felt like it was the only thing he could do to save his life. While on jail trial they used the fact that he does not feel emtions and did not mourn at his mothers funeral against him. He was proven guilty and to find out his punishment you have to read the book!

This book opend my eyes to other peoples ways of showing emotions and their troubles in life. The main character is a Arab named Monisuer Mersault. He does not show his emtions with his face or actions he keeps them inside. At the begging his maman dies. Later as the book evolves he finds a girlfriend and on a weekend trip with her he murders another Arab. He had been getting in with the wrong group of people. When he murderd the person he was feeling threatend by a group of Arabs with knifes. Mersault felt like it was the only thing he could do to save his life. While on jail trial they used the fact that he does not feel emtions and did not mourn at his mothers funeral against him. He was proven guilty and to find out his punishment you have to read the book!

The Stranger is a haunting, challenging masterpiece of literature. While it is fiction, it actually manages to express the complex concepts and themes of existential philosophy better than the movement's most noted philosophical writings and almost as well as Dostoyevsky's Notes From the Underground. This is a new kind of literature. The story in and of itself is rather simple, but the glimpses into the intellect and feelings of the protagonist are the sources of the magic of this novel. M.Meursault is a normal man in Algiers, France. When we meet him, he is on the way to his mother's funeral, where he says very little, expresses no remorse over her death, and immediately returns home. The next day, he goes swimming, meets Marie, takes her to see a comedy that night, and spends the next few weeks living his normal life and occassionally seeing Marie. He ends up getting indirectly involved in a dispute between his neighbor Raymond and a girl who did him wrong, and the conflict culminates in an encounter on the beach between Raymond, Meursault, and the girl's Arab brother and friend. Raymond is cut with a knife, but the whole episode seems to be resolved. Meursault, though, decides later to take another walk on the beach because he is too worn out to go inside and rejoin his friends, and somewhat inexplicably he ends up killing one of the Arabs. The second half of the novel examines Meursault's thoughts in relation to his trial and sentence; interestingly, he is prosecuted as much if not more for his moral character than for the crime of murder itself.

Basically, Meursault does not care about anything, does not feel anything for anyone (including himself, for the most part). He looks at life objectively and determines that it really doesn't matter whether he does something or not in the overall scheme of things. When Marie expresses her love for him, he tells her he will marry her if it will make her happy but that he cannot say he really loves her. He expresses no remorse for killing the Arab because it just happened; he had no intention of doing it, but the fact is that he did, so there's little point in dwelling on it. He cares about the present and, to a lesser degree, the future, but the past is meaningless for the very reason that it is the past. Meursault sees things as they are; rather than rely on flights of fantasy and imagination (the typical tools of the Romanticists), he deals with facts in the here and now rather than run from them and has no problem admitting the seemingly obvious fact that man is a creature of utter depravity. He rejects religion; since each man must eventually die, what does it matter what he does while on earth. It is a man's hopes and dreams that weigh down his very existence; Marsault can only find happiness by cleansing himself of all such illusory notions.

Needless to say, this is not an uplifting book, but it is an engaging, thought-provoking one. While Camus cannot be called a true existentialist in his own philosophical outlook, his fiction does epitomize many existentialist ideas. Marsault is a protagonist like no other in literature--you cannot like him, he is obviously guilty of killing a man in cold blood, and he is of a cold-hearted nature, yet you do understand some of his thinking, find yourself more and more interested in his dark outlook on life, and have to admit that much of what he believes makes sense.

This book was nuts. This guy was so cold hearted and completly...a strager...even to his friends. He was so cold that it almost even made to this book boring. I mean, somtimes I would be reading and I would notice that I was board, but I wanted to read more. I cant explain it, but this book was amazing! READ THIS BOOK!

The Stranger

By: Albert Camus

The book that I read was called The Stranger by Albert Camus. The story is a

simple novel about a guy named Meursault, a shipping clerk in the North African city of Algiers. He seems to be a very superficial person in all his actions. He finds out about his mothers death and when he goes to his mother's funeral, he isn't in the least bit devastated by her death; this is because he just sees death as a part of life, in my opinion. He finds himself hanging out with some new friends and while "Backing up" one of them, he shoots and kills one man. He is now in jail and is facing the death penalty, hoping and praying for parole. Then he is visited by the county's chaplain, who makes him realize just how important life is to him.

Meursault is a very unique individual that sees life in a very different way, rather than judging someone, he tries to find out why that person acts that way. The things that he holds dear and cares about are a little different also, he cares a great deal about the little things in life, like swimming and running, instead of things like a big house, or a nice car. Another thing that is a little "off" that I find is that he doesn't think about how his actions will affect his future life, he kind of "lives for the moment" instead of planning for the things to come. The last that intrigues me about him is that he doesn't have that much emotion for the things that are going on around him, I think this is because he doesn't want to live up to societies' expectations that everyone behaves a certain way. I think that the reason why he doesn't have everyone else's emotional habits is because he sees things as they are and that's it, he doesn't think about what the outcomes means to him.

I think that the title, The Stranger, refers to the main character Meursault. The reason why I think so, is because throughout the whole book you learn plenty about him, but he always seems so very distant to me. The question that arises from this is "Why?" Why would the author write an entire novel, giving minute details about his train of thought, and his emotions (when they arise) and give obvious effort to keep the man a mystery? I think that the reason is because he wants the reader to relate to Meursault, and learn from his experiences. Another reason that could be the answer is because the author wants the reader to be jealous of him. The grounds that I say is on how everybody wants act without worrying about what everyone else thinks of him or her. Meursault doesn't have a care in the world about how anybody else thinks of him, which is why he finds no need to comply with societies' unwritten laws. This makes people either like him and value his friendship or opinion, or they think he's an insensitive guy.

The reason why I picked this book is because my partner, Ray, chose it. The reason why I read this book is because Meursault intrigued me and made me want to continue on and read the book. When you have a character like in The Stranger, by Albert Camus that makes you think it would be great to be able to trade places with for a day, then you can't help but not put the book down. That's what happened to me and that's why I think it is on the honors reading list.

Camus has made a real classic with his book The stranger. Camus provides readers with a glimpse into the life of a young Frenchman named Mersault. The first line of the book is one of the most famous lines in literature. the line shows Mersault's affection for his mother. The telegram Mersault recieves does not tell when his mother died, only the fact that she did die. In the Book Mersault has a girlfriend by the name of Marie. Marie is somewhat a bandage for Mersault after his mother dies. althought Mersault's mothers death does not affect him totally, he still needs help coping with it. throughout the whole book Mersault does not take stands on his views towards different events in the book. i think Camus was trying to tell where neutrality can get you. i enjoyed this book very much, and im a teenager by the age of 16. you should pick this book up, its short, sweet, and has soo much meaning to it, its astounding.

Existentialism, the one thing you must fully understand before reading the stranger, also the ideals existentialism is based around. It states that your time on this earth is pointless, and no matter what you do, you will end up going to hell and be considered a sinner. The main character in this book can approach existentialism in 3 different ways. He can give in and live his life of sin and be doomed to hell, but he will be carefree and worry about nothing he does. The second is he can stand on the edge so to speak, and live his life the was he thinks is good, and laugh in the face of existentialism. The third is he can say forget this , and not even believe in it , and live a happy life , with the false idea that in the end he will go to heaven and be loved by god. The main character takes the first route, and lives his life without care or guilt for his actions, even when he commits a senseless murder on a deserted beach. He shuns love when it comes his way, and he doesnt really think too much about his actions. This book becomes more interesting the more you read, and by the end you will discover what a truly well written story it is.